Boot from USB Drive on Windows 10 PC  

no boot device found when booting from Windows 10 install USB, how does this happen?

Brink said:

Hello aloalatna, and welcome to Ten Forums.

How was the USB created?

Create Bootable USB Flash Drive to Install Windows 10

Thanks, turn out the Windows iso was damaged.

Hello, I somehow managed to corrupt the operating system on my SSD C: drive, and have been unable to restore it. I've gotten to the point that the only option is to reinstall Windows. I have tried to follow the steps in this tutorial, but booting from the USB gets as far as the Windows 10 logo coming up (sometimes; it seems to depend on whether I'm trying UEFI or not) and the circle of dots showing something is happening, but it goes no further. I have tried both the Media Creation Tool (which took multiple attempts to even create that), and Rufus. I wasn't even sure that the SSD wasn't faulty, but I did manage to use Balina Etcher and Zorin to boot the computer and was able to copy files from the SSD, except from the Windows folder (it couldn't read it) and some other MS files. So the SSD itself seems usable, and my ability to boot from USB has been shown.
Actually, I did once manage to get into the Windows installation setup, but that time the BIOS hadn't recognised the SSD, so I had to get back out and haven't been able to get back in since.

Hello Brink,

Thanks for the reply.

I tried both, and neither worked. And no, there were no error messages, just the circle of dots going on and on and on... all night in one attempt. I could have worked with error messages, but zip.

But I have since solved the problem.
In making my original comment, I wondered if it would only work if I disconnected the SSD, and sure enough, I had a catch 22! I could run the Windows installer (up to the point of it asking for a drive) if I didn't have the drive connected that I wanted it installed on!
I had fired up my late father's old Windows 7 computer stored in the garage to check out the SSD drive and create the USB installer.
I thought of trying to install Windows on the drive in the Windows 7 computer, booting to the USB in that. I don't recall precisely what happened after that, but somehow in that computer CHKDSK ran, which proceeded to find huge numbers of problems (it went on for maybe 20 minutes or more), and fixed them. Well, not to the point of restoring Windows, and I think that computer refused to run the installer, but I think I tried it again in my computer (after managing to get the BIOS to recognise it again), and this time the installer was able to run properly.
(It turned out that it was formatted for Legacy BIOS, although, as I mentioned, I had tried that earlier, and that wasn't the problem.)
Now I have days of work ahead of me reinstalling applications, reinstating my preferences and settings, and so on. Arrgh! But at least it's usable again.

(Incidentally, it wasn't practicable to connect the Windows 7 computer, which didn't have wifi, to my modem, but I had used my Android tablet to download the files, and then connected the tablet to that computer to transfer the downloaded files, and discovered, almost by accident, that I could use USB tethering give the Windows 7 computer internet access via the tablet connecting to the wifi from my modem.)